While everyone figured Demon Slayer Infinity Castle would do well over the weekend, no one predicted THIS well. It took in $70 million by Sunday night, easily taking first place. That’s not “slow week at the box office so it wins by default” money. That’s “if a new Tom Cruise movie opened last weekend it still would have won #1” kind of results.
And that’s not even the most surprising thing. That $70 mil figure? It’s DOMESTIC. That’s how well it did in the US alone. When you factor in the global take, Infinity Castle has earned $177.8 million, which is more than the previous movie, Mugen Train, earned in its entire lifespan. People were wondering if Mugen Train‘s record could be beaten. Guess so!
This is pretty significant, not just for the Demon Slayer brand but for what it means for anime as a whole. No other Japanese movie — or foreign movie period — has ever achieved those numbers around here. In terms of anime, the previous record holder was Pokemon: The First Movie from way back in 1999, which Infinity Castle easily shattered.
This is the strongest proof ever that anime has escaped the basements and gone mainstream. I’m sure there are still pockets of the US where you can get wedgied for being a “weeb” but this is not the kind of movie one goes into cold — you have to be a follower of the Demon Slayer series to know what’s going on, and this means a significant amount of people follow it.
Demon Slayer is about Tanjiro Kamado, a young man whose sister is tragically turned into a demon after his family is attacked by one. Seeking vengeance and a cure, he joins an organization dedicated to hunting down demons called the Demon Slayer Corps. Demon Slayer Infinity Castle picks up where Hashira Training Arc left off, with Tanjiro and the Hashira taking the fight directly to the demons’ stronghold: the titular Castle.
There’s other animation news at the theater this week…Disney picked this weekend to re-release Toy Story on its 30th anniversary. A spat between a plastic cowboy and as spaceman is not as flashy, comparatively, as a giant battle between sword-wielding warriors and grotesque yokai in an infinite hallway, but it still took in $3.5 million from 2,375 theaters to land in fifth place.
